In 2012, electrical engineer and amateur photographer Dr Rajiv Laroia came up with the idea for Light, an ultra-high-image quality L16 camera, while serving as entrepreneur-in-residence at venture capital firm Charles River Ventures.

He owned a DSLR camera but found he usually left it in the cupboard in favour of his smartphone, which was easier to take around. To make people want to pick up a camera again, he had to end the trade-off between quality and convenience.

Demand for the L16 was so widespread that pre-sale orders closed in January 2016 after just four months.

Since then, Light has expanded product features for the L16 and built out the team in two new locations – San Francisco and Taipei – as it ramps up production to begin shipping in 2017. Co-founder and CEO Dave Grannan was head of Vlingo, the first natural language speech recognition service for mobile phones, which was acquired by Nuance Communications in 2012.